Helms' U.N. speech blasts world's 'lack of gratitude'

Posted: Friday, January 21, 2000

TOM RAUMThe Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS - Sen. Jesse Helms, who made a career lambasting the United Nations, kept up the attack as he addressed the Security Council on Thursday, saying Americans feel "a lack of gratitude" from the world organization.

Helms, R-N.C., who previously branded U.N. officials as "dysfunctional" and "cry babies," tempered his criticism by proposing a new spirit of cooperation with the world body and suggested formal, annual visits between members and U.S. lawmakers.

"If we are to have a new beginning, we must endeavor to understand each other better," Helms said in the first address by a U.S. lawmaker to the Security Council.

Despite his courtly tone and offer of a "hand of friendship," delegates reacted coolly to Helms' litany of U.N. excesses and failings.

American tardiness in meeting its payments and Helms' insistence on a lower U.S. contribution "has hindered and not helped" peacekeeping efforts, said Jeremy Greenstock, the British envoy.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia's representative, complained that the United States failed to abide by terms of a U.N. budget that all members approved.

"All the other members of the United Nations expected the United States to keep its word," Lavrov said.

"The money we spend on the U.N. is not charity," Helms declared. "To the contrary, it is an investment - an investment from which the American people rightly expect a return."

Congress last year voted to pay $926 million in back U.S. dues over three years. The United States paid a $100 million installment late last year. But to get the rest, the United Nations must meet about a dozen conditions drafted by Helms, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, and Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the committee's senior minority member.

The senator accused the General Assembly of an anti-American bias.

"The American people hear all this, (and) they resent it," Helms said. "And they have grown increasingly frustrated with what they feel is a lack of gratitude."

The conditions include a reduction in the U.S. share of the U.N. peacekeeping budget to 25 percent from the 31 percent and of the regular budget to 22 percent from 25 percent.

Helms said the United Nations must trim its spending and not draw the United States into "entangling alliances."

"A United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent begs for confrontation, and - I want to be candid - eventual U.S. withdrawal," Helms said.

Helms was invited to speak by U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who holds the rotating council chairmanship.

Despite the blunt exchanges, Holbrooke said he hoped Helms' appearance would help in "bringing to a close a chapter of great tension between Washington and the U.N."

"It will help us push the reform package, which is our highest priority," Holbrooke said.

The full 188-member General Assembly must approve any major changes in the organization's operations and cost-sharing formula.

Helms told the Security Council it had a "mixed record" in recent conflicts.

While it "performed admirably" in ending Iraqi aggression against Kuwait in 1990-91, "in the more recent case of Kosovo, it was paralyzed," Helms said.

"The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia was a disaster, and its failure to protect the Bosnian people from Serb genocide is well documented," Helms said.

Among other criticisms, Helms took issue with Secretary General Kofi Annan's calls for increased "global engagement." The United Nations "must respect national sovereignty" and not seek "to impose its utopian vision of international law on Americans," Helms said.

Annan met privately with Helms before the meeting and escorted him into the chamber, but did not stay for the speech. John Ruggie, a top Annan aide, said Annan's absence was not a snub, but the secretary general had other engagements.

Helms mixed his lecture with folksy charm, saying at one point that he hoped "you have a translator here who can speak Southern."

"It is not my intent to offend you, and I hope I will not," Helms said.

Each of the Security Council's 14 other members spoke in response to Helms' speech.

"Your warm accent from the South was entirely understood by our interpreters," French Ambassador Alain Dejammet said. "We did hear you.... But the idea in this house is that others must be heard as well."

The Chinese ambassador, Qin Huasun, said the United Nations "is not perfect ... but it is irreplaceable and it is there for everyone to see." He did suggest agreement with Helms' views that the United Nations exhibit "respect for sovereignty" and "nonintervention in internal affairs."

Helms spoke while seated at the head of the horseshoe-shaped Security Council table, mostly reading from a loose-leaf notebook, sometimes banging his hands on the table to emphasize a point. Council members looked on with little apparent emotion.

Today, other members of the Foreign Relations Committee will join Helms for a meeting with Annan, lunch at U.N. headquarters, and a committee hearing at a nearby office building that will look into recent developments at the United Nations.

Helms told reporters none of the rebuttal comments changed his mind about the United Nations, but he said, smiling broadly, "I think we have a certain camaraderie going. Let's keep it going."